Rangel Shares a Story Worth Telling

AND I HAVEN'T HAD A BAD DAY SINCE: FROM THE STREETS OF HARLEM TO THE HALLS OF CONGRESS

By Charles B. Rangel

Story Continued Below

(With Leon Wynter)

Thomas Dunne Books, April 3, 2007

320 pages, $24.95

Sometime in the early 1950s, at a bar in Harlem, Charles B. Rangel got into a fistfight with his brother Ralph. A friend of Ralph's jumped in and hit Charles, so the brothers joined forces to beat up the friend. Afterward, the siblings didn't speak to each other for three days.

Fast forward to 2006: As a member of the House of Representatives fighting for a Democratic majority, Rangel was lambasting President Bush for the war in Iraq and his seeming indifference to the disenfranchised. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez then came to New York and called Bush names, at the United Nations and at a church in Harlem.

Surprisingly, but not uncharacteristically, Rangel leapt to Bush's defense: "You don't come into my country, you don't come into my congressional district, and you don't condemn my president." Soon after, Rangel was back on the campaign trail, reading his bill of indictment against Bush.

Politics will do that -- whipsaw a person in a way that tests loyalty's bonds and alters its boundaries, if only for an instant. Throughout his life, detailed in his memoir, "And I Haven't Had a Bad Day Since," Rangel, 76, has found himself in the middle of many complicated relationships, starting when he stood in front of his mother to stop his grandfather from hitting her. (True to form, his mother spanked him for interfering.)

Rangel's ability to maneuver in tight quarters has carried him to the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, a position that could make him one of the most powerful black politicians in the nation's history. His story is not only compelling but also important, now that he has a big say in how the country's money will be spent during a time of war and an ever-widening gap between rich and poor.

If only the telling of his story had been more disciplined, with a sharper focus on how personal and professional tales from the past are shaping his vision for the future. Republicans have acquired and maintained power in Washington over the past four decades in part through their ability to frame the debate through well-told stories that resonate with voters. Rangel and his ghostwriter, Leon Wynter, had an opportunity to introduce the congressman to an audience beyond greater New York, where many already know the basic elements of an American original.

Instead, a potentially fascinating narrative gets sidetracked by chatty name-dropping and irrelevant anecdotes, the needless repetition of information and punch lines of stories that run ahead of their setup. All of these defuse the tension that could have formed something more than just another political memoir.

The book, however, has several strengths; first among them is the arc of Rangel's life. To much of America, the congressman is perceived simply as a left-wing politician from New York who rails against Republicans as they attempt to curtail funding for low-cost housing, Medicare and Medicaid.

Few know that he is also a former high school dropout from a fatherless home who enlisted in the Army, earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in Korea, returned to the States to finish his education, get a law degree and go to Congress -- where he fights for better housing and jobs, and tries to court CEOs to become an integral part of public policy discussions.

The story of how Rangel led a group of soldiers over a mountain in North Korea one night to escape Chinese forces is particularly arresting, and is the foundation for the book's title; since surviving the near-death experience, Rangel maintains he hasn't had a bad day since. Another noteworthy episode is how an official at the Veterans Administration persuaded Rangel to resume his schooling, an anecdote that deftly illustrates two of his core beliefs: education and effective assistance from the federal government.

Rangel also does a decent job of limning the nuances within black society, such as the tensions between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned relatives and the intricacies of Harlem politics. This information isn't wildly revelatory, but it is edifying, particularly in understanding Rangel's ability to negotiate his way through many worlds.

Rangel's book is worth reading and his tale worth hearing, because it is as timely as it is universal: He grew up poor, joined the Army to better himself and was sent to an ill-conceived war that merely produced a deadlier foe.

If the myriad parts of this story had been sewn into the gripping narrative that was possible, a larger part of the country could have seen not only where Rangel's polemical fervor comes from but where it might lead. In a town where there are some 537 political memoirs at any given moment, his might have stood out enough to make a difference.